The Drowner by John D. MacDonald

the particular… involvement… his relationship to it, is a personal matter and I think he’d rather I kept it on a personal basis.”
    Her eyes widened momentarily and she pursed her lips. “Now it just wouldn’t happen to be insurance on that Mrs. Hanson, would it?”
    Stanial faked clumsy surprise and said, “It’s a personal matter.”
    “He won’t take kindly to you bothering him about her.”
    “If anybody refuses to cooperate, all I can do is make a negative report.”
    “So it is about her!”
    “I didn’t say it was.”
    “I guess he’s the one you have to talk to. I don’t know anything about that woman. And didn’t want to know.” A harshness had crept into her tone. She sat at her desk and rolled fresh paper into the typewriter. Stanial decided the big husky girl probably had emotional cause for complaint.
    “Have you worked for Mr. Kimber long?”
    “Three years,” she said abruptly.
    Carefully casual, he said, “I guess it’s only natural you’d feel some resentment toward Lucille Hanson.”
    For a few moments her hands rested on the keys. She turned and looked at him. It was not the expression he expected. It was a puzzled look. “Why should I resent her? I wouldn’t resent any of Mister Sam’s women unless they tried to hurt him some way, and if they did, I figure he can take care of himself. It’s man’s way to want women, and I don’t have to understand it, do I? I can feel sorrow and pity it should be so, but it is the burden man brought out of the Garden, and he sins and whether or not he is forgiven is up to God. And I don’t have to understand why there’s women who entice men and make them drunk on the dirty habits of the flesh, without even the words of the church to make it halfway clean in God’s eyes. But I don’t have to know anything about those women, or have any wonderment about them, Mr. Stanial. I’m sorry she died in the middle of her dirty ways before he got sick of her, so now he confuses mourning with his unsatisfied lust. But he’ll get over it, and there’ll be another one, and another one after that, and when the fires of the body begin to die, I pray he’ll make his peace with God and cleanse himself.” Her voice had taken on a singsong quality, faintly reminiscent of a revival sermon. She gave a small shiver and smiled at him and said in a normal tone, “There’s no cause I should resent that woman.”
    “I’m sorry. I didn’t understand.”
    “Most people don’t understand. It doesn’t bother me. Evil doesn’t touch me, Mr. Stanial. It’s my fate men should come snuffling around me with all their winks and sly ways, staring at me and trying to brush their hands against me. God made me desirable to men so as to keep testing me. I am His lamb. When I was fifteen I spent two days and two nights on my knees asking Him if I should hide my body from the world of men and spend my life in prayer. But He told me to live in the world and spurn the tempters and the deceivers because from my example some of them might find the Kingdom of Heaven. My body is the temple of the Lord, and I keep it clean and strong and unsoiled.” Again she made the abrupt change from singsong to normal conversation. “I don’t expect many people to understand, Mr. Stanial.”
    “Does Mr. Kimber?”
    She sighed. “Sort of, I guess. The only thing he won’t allow is me preaching at him. He says we all have to go our own way and find out things in our own time. But, golly, it sure is taking him a long time to see the error of his ways. Sometimes I feel right discouraged about Mister Sam. And I get blue. But if I go out and run a few miles or swim a few miles and get myself tuckered, I feel better. You look like you have a strong healthy body, Mr. Stanial, but you’ve smoked two cigarettes since you sat down there, and it’s a shame you have to do that to yourself.” She frowned and shook her head. “I surely wish I knew where that man went off to. He might not